Harry Potter and the Couple of Hours of Retirement
by ElMarquis
Summary: Mentally and physically fatigued after twenty years as a soldier on top of four years on an MI5 infiltration mission of Hogwarts, Harry decides to retire... for the time it takes to pack his kit and fly to the next demanding job... in America. Old friends lie in wait and so does the odd enemy. My FOURTH rewrite of this story prior to publishing.
1. 1: Silver War Pt1

**October 9th 2010, London**

Sat in his office in the depths of Thames House, the London headquarters of Britain's internal security and intelligence agency, MI5, Jonathan Evans, almost with a hint of dread reread the retirement application of one of his best operatives. Hadrian James Potter. Thirty-five years old. Born to a family with a heritage going back more years than he ever cared to disclose. His parents, James Charlus Potter and Lillian Marie Potter had been killed in a terrorist attack. A wizarding terrorist attack.

The last Potter had borne a grudge from the day he found out who and what had happened to his parents to the day, 24th of June 1990, that he claimed his vengeance. Desperate for the skills that only Harry had and were available to them, Patrick Walker, his predecessor in the post in 1990, had pushed Harry towards SAS training. And he'd not quite turned fifteen at the time. Age didn't stop an MI5 still working in a Cold War mentality and Potter hadn't minded. It got him away from his former headmaster who attempted to hold a disturbing level of influence over him. Operation Granby in Iraq, Operation Deliberate Force and Operation Allied Force in the Balkans. The twenty-first century kicked off with Operation Palliser and the typically balls-to-the-wall SAS Operation Barras in Sierra Leone, then Operation Herrick in Afghanistan and Operation Telic in Iraq.

To add to this, post Operation Granby, he'd spent nearly a year in America prior to being attached to an American special forces unit deployed to Somalia. With USAF Weapons School graduation with certification for the F-15 Eagle and, later, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, plus subsequent TOPGUN certification in the years that followed, flying the F-14 Tomcat and F/A-18 Hornet, Harry Potter wasn't exactly going to fail to get a job flying fast jets. 1993 had seen him fight in Operation Gothic Serpent and several retaliatory operations.

Then the Director-General turned to another file. In the last few weeks, Potter had been in regular communication with an Israeli intelligence officer. One who just happened to have the Director of Mossad as a father. He sighed, rubbing his temples. Potter had given twenty years of service to Her Majesty's Government. He'd done two as Commanding Officer of 22 SAS. He'd written _the_ book on Eastern Bloc combat aircraft, their capabilities and how to fight them. When on the point of collapsing, the only thing keeping the Sierra Leone Government up were regular shipments of arms from Potter's estate. That wasn't exactly altruistic though, he'd made a fortune by being paid in rough diamonds, having them cut and sold. But despite the potential security risk, Evans couldn't say that Potter hadn't given his country his all and deserved some level of trust. He'd still keep a quiet eye on the soldier, but for now, he'd approve the retirement.

Silently, Evans glanced over the thin file on the Mossad agent's file before closing it and placing it in a secure safe.

 _Miss Z. David was born November 12th 1978, was conscripted to the IDF aged 18 in November 1996, serving until December 2000 during which time she met Captain H.J Potter. Rumours are abuntant in SAS HQ of a relationship. To be regarded dubious at best. Upon discharge, she studied military history at the University of Oxford, where she further associated with Major H.J Potter. Graduating in 2003 with a Master of Arts, she joined Mossad and apart from a period as a declared officer of Israeli Embassy in early 2010, with a number of dinner dates with Colonel H.J Potter, nothing is known of her activities._

Potter had almost no loyalty to Israel, even go so far on one occasion as to break Eli David's nose. His only loyalty was Israel Aerospace Industries who upgraded the avionics of his aeroplanes.

Though there was possibly Ziva if the rumours of boyfriend-girlfriend dating back to the SAS-Sayeret Maktal posting in late 1996 were true. What a mess that had been, the Section Five troopers browbeating the Sayeret commander into taking them on a mission. Then two Blackhawks were shot down and the SAS men along with David went missing, gradually returning until it was just Potter and David, who, after being captured providing a rearguard, had wreaked bloody vengeance on the insurgents. And to top it off, two of the SAS men had stolen an IAF F-4 Phantom and briefly gone rogue with it to support Potter. Afterwards, they decided to buy the aircraft off the IAF and have further airframes upgraded.

Silently, Evans decided to lock the files away in his personal vault and ignore them. When it came to Potter, when in doubt, ignore. He was certain that Potter's intent to remain retired would last as long as the last one in mid-late 2005, which lasted all of three weeks.

* * *

 **October 9th 2010, Credenhill Barracks, Hereford**

Harry pulled back the cocking hammer on his MEUSOC Kimber M45 pistol, emptying the magazine in a hail of bullets straight into a face crudely graffiti onto his door. The wood was already punctured many times by rounds but the metal core was unharmed so that nobody walking outside would get shot. He was bored and twitchy. Even worse, he was actually looking forward to the retirement he'd applied for. Being a soldier was all he knew but he was reaching sufficient seniority that the chances of a good firefight were diminishing horribly.

"Boss, we've got an operation to execute." Jock McCabe, Warrant Officer of 22 SAS poked his head around the door.

"I didn't hear about that and usually these things cross my desk." Harry frowned, sliding a new magazine into his pistol.

"Mhmm. We've got a joined tactical evaluation with the Special Boat Service. RAF Odiham is the target for the assault by a joint special forces group." Jock replied.

"You're smirking." stated Harry.

"The SBS base at Poole has just received a major shipment of beer, cider and assorted spirits." said Jock, his smirk widening; "I believe that the base is winding up for a party. Your retirement approval signed by MI5, the DSF and the Chief of Land Forces has just come through.

"Get Eight Flight on the blower. Get one Chinook, D Squadron and two Merlins." Harry said instantly; "We can't let our dear friends at Poole become intoxicated."

* * *

Rolling over and groaning as the full weight of a major hangover crashed down on him, Harry squinted at the window of the Senior NCOs mess. The light suggested it was early morning and the number of SAS troopers draped around the room suggested that they'd had a major piss up. Staggering to his feet for a moment, Harry collapsed in an unoccupied armchair and made a noise of annoyance when his mobile phone rang suddenly.

"Sod off." Harry barked after accepting the call.

" _Morning Potter, Gibbs here_." came the response from the far side of the Atlantic, a slightly tired, sarcastic-sounding Pennsylvanian growl.

"Make it short Gibbs, I've got one hell of a hangover." Harry stated, reaching for a cigar and a lighter.

" _I was just phoning to beg you take up that offer I made of a job at NCIS_."

"Why?" asked Harry as he lit the cigar.

" _You remember Jenny Shepard._ "

"What, that girl you were shagging in Serbia?" said Harry.

" _Yes. She's just become director of NCIS and appointed a Mossad officer to the team._ " Gibbs grumbled; " _So I told her that I'd already filled the spot. When she asked me who, you were the first person who popped into my mind._ "

"So you're saying that because you fucked up that you need me to come and bail you out." growled Harry, making it plain he was pretty pissed off.

" _Yeah, if you put it that way._ " Gibbs admitted; " _You might be a good way to temper my new agent._ "

"You owe me several _really_ big favours." said Harry; "I'll be in Washington within a day, maybe sooner. First I need to get rid of this hangover."

" _Thanks Potter, I really do owe you several._ "

"Including for saving your sorry ass back in Desert Storm." Harry added before cutting the call.

It took some time for Harry to gather himself together and get some breakfast. Or to put it correctly, a packet of crisps, a bar of chocolate and two pints of coffee. Stood outside his office which now lay mostly-empty for his successor to take over, Harry wondered if he was making the right decision. After twenty years of soldiering, he was stood on the edge of a precipice. His old USMC friend's request would help him make the transition, staying in a semi-military establishment.

He quietly picked up all his equipment and belongings, which added up to several bags of guns and a single bag of 'other' items, having burned several files which he didn't want to get into anyone's hands. He shifted them out of the back door from his office to his executive transport, a Hawker Sea Fury. The rear cockpit of the two-seater radial-engined fighter was soon filled with his gear before he headed back inside, heading to the officer's mess.

Poking his head around the door quickly gained everyone's attention. Harry _very_ rarely entered the officers' mess because he almost always occupied the sergeants' mess. It was one of his odd habits that everyone just accepted. Though they too had been part of the piss up, most of the officers were up and about, somewhat less drunk.

"Major Jackson!" Harry called, getting the attention of one of the officers, his own personal student.

"Yes boss?" asked Jackie Jackson; "Everyone listen up, the boss is giving a retirement speech!"

"I would like to thank..." began Harry rifling through several pages of notes for a speech before setting light to them with the end of his cigar; "Bugger that. Jackie, you're in charge from now on. Brass has approved my retirement. I'll still come back in if I'm needed urgently." Harry said with a grin; "All the files are in order, the keys are in the door to my office and I'm sure you can disarm the trip-mine. Good luck and have fun."

Laughter erupted as a typical Potter speech ended and once again the whisky was broken out. Harry abstained, having a final mug of coffee before his departure for pastures new. As lunchtime rolled around, the Hawker Sea Fury was turning into wind, the snarling Centaurus radial engine and the massive five-blade propeller turning over smoothly and the wings descending from the folded position to locked down. Gathering speed as the snarl became a roar, the tail came up and the aircraft almost levitated from the grass. Thus ended an era.

* * *

 **October 11th 2010, Ravenscroft Manor, Kent**

Climbing out of the Sea Fury's cockpit, Harry carefully avoided getting his boot stuck in the sprung panel on the fuselage which allowed him to descend onto the wing and from there onto the tarmac. His employees raced around the aircraft, after being reassured he wasn't going to be using it in the near future, they removed the belts of Hispano cannon shells from the wings, put the chocks in, locked the gust-locks and helped him grab his gear from the back, putting it in one of the estate's Lightweight Land Rovers which he drove over to the manor. As expected, in the inner courtyard, Victor Dubose was waiting, dressed in his impeccable butler's suit.

"Good afternoon sir. I wasn't expecting you to have left work this early." he said, fishing for information.

"I thought I mentioned I was retiring." Harry commented; "Those with scrambled egg on their hats and those with buttons on their suits have approved my application to retire. I'll just grab a sandwich then I'm taking one of the Phantoms to Andrews Air Force Base. I want the four missile bays loaded with Python Fours, but nothing else except full drop tanks." Harry ordered, heading into the manor.

A few short minutes later, he was sat in the cockpit of 'Popeye the Sailor', one of his McDonnell Douglas F-4K Phantoms. An airframe upgraded by Israel Aerospace Industries, the weight of the aircraft was reduced by over a ton with obsolete computers and massive amounts of wiring replaced by lightweight computers and fibre-optic cables. He had a far more versatile weapons platform as a result, but it was also lighter.

The stories went that the huge Spey turbofans limited the top speed of the aircraft due to drag to Mach 1.8 as they were that much larger than the American Phantom's J79s. That wasn't true. Harry had taken the aircraft to twice the speed of sound in a shallow dive on its original engines. The problem was that the expensive titanium parts that were critical for the engine's heat resistance never got put in. However, the Chinese built Rolls-Royce Speys which didn't suffer from that problem. He now had a far faster and altogether more fun to fly machine than the original aircraft.

The recesses in the belly of the aircraft were loaded with four Python Four air-to-air missiles. The outboard pylons and the centreline pylon all had their external fuel tanks fully fuelled. Harry settled into the cockpit and after a minute, the engines began to whine into life. Two Rolls-Royce Spey Xian WS-9 turbofans, each weighing nearly two tons, with a length of seventeen feet and a diameter of a metre could propel him to a speed over twice the speed of sound.

Harry loved the feeling of power under his fingers. Easing off the brakes, he gently applied power to the port engine and taxied the massive fighter out onto the two-mile long, dead-straight driveway. There, he halted and performed the final pre-flight checks before, satisfied with the airworthiness of the jet, released the brakes and eased the throttles forward into afterburner.

The jets emitted a white cone of pure fire behind the aircraft and it roared forward, the nose coming up as over forty-thousand pounds of force drove it forward. A rippling mirage of superheated air followed the jet as it climbed at a shallow angle, the undercarriage coming up. Speed building as the Phantom passed the end of the runway, suddenly it pitched up at Mach 0.9, nearly the speed of sound. Climbing like a homesick angel, twenty tons of exotic materials and a large amount of jet fuel made for sixty-thousand feet, unrestricted airspace where there were no rules, no control and no airliners to dodge.

As he began to set the navigation for the area where a USAF tanker would be loitering for an exercise with USAF Europe fighters within an hour, Harry briefly contemplated turning south-west for his little hideout in the wonderful green paradise of Green Mountain on Ascension Island. He threw the thought away, a holiday for later, but he was heading to Washington.

* * *

 **October 11th 2010**

Cruising up the length of Britain, Harry opened the throttles to make his rendezvous with a USAF tanker at a latitude similar to the Orkney Islands but directly south of Vik in Iceland. Averaging Mach 1.2 for the run from his home near Maidstone to Narsarsuaq Airport in Greenland, including the tanker stop, he'd only taken two hours. From Narsarsuaq to La Romaine Airport in Quebec, across the Labrador Sea, he'd shown a clean pair of heels at a steady Mach 2 for just over thirty minutes. With his fuel tanks nearly dry, he'd taken advantage of the arrestor gear at La Romaine Airport, cutting down the landing from about seven to eight-thousand feet to just a few hundred. After hitting the fuel pumps at La Romaine, he returned to the sky. Another sprint across the Gulf of St. Lawrence resulted in a need to refuel where he was now, Yarmouth Airport, Nova Scotia.

Stepping into the cockpit of the hulking Phantom, sipping from a Styrofoam cup of coffee, Harry produced his satellite phone and dialled a number. He was ahead of schedule at just under three hours of flying. Time in the UK was four PM, while Yarmouth Airport was at midday. In effect, he was repeating part of the day.

" _Gibbs._ " barked the person on the other end of the line.

"Hello Gibbs." Harry stated; "I'm on my way over, would it be possible for a pickup?"

" _Yah, that's fine. Glad to know you're on your way, we just got a weird case, a Marine Security Guard in full Union uniform buried in a Civil War casket with a mobile phone, I don't suppose you'd like to help?_ " Gibbs replied.

"Sounds interesting. I'll be in at Andrews in... between half-an-hour and an hour." said Harry.

" _I'll meet you there._ " and with that, Gibbs hung up.

Harry took a deep gulp of the coffee. It wasn't as good as the kind he liked to get from Brazil, but it wasn't the worst. The Phantom, a hulking machine, was quietly ticking, losing some of the heat built up from several supersonic runs. It had taken being flown like it was stolen well, chewing up the miles. He had one last leg, across the Gulf of Maine and down the coast. At full chat, the plane had exceeded Mach 2, burning about thirteen to fourteen hundred pounds of gas a minute.

Emptying the cup of coffee, he threw it into a nearby corporate wheelie bin with superb accuracy before strapping himself back onto the ejector seat. Once again, the howl of two Rolls-Royce Speys coming to life was to be heard.

* * *

 **October 11th 2010, Andrews Air Force Base**

"Boss, who d'you say this new guy is?" asked Tony for the nth time, causing both Ziva and Gibbs to sigh.

Ziva glanced at Gibbs, whose face was, as ever, expressionless. She knew he barely tolerated her, and honestly couldn't blame him. But what was he planning with the other new agent, she didn't know. Gibbs eventually replied to Tony's question.

"An old colleague of mine. Desert Storm."

It wasn't a hugely descriptive answer he had to admit.

"What, is he another Force Recon Marine?" asked Tony.

"Not exactly." said Gibbs before turning away to stare out onto the stand, mostly-empty with a few fighters on interceptor duty parked up near the far end and a C-17 Globemaster unloading some crates onto trucks beyond them. Suddenly, he reached for a pair of binoculars in the door pocket and wound the window down. "In fact, I believe that's him coming in on runway one-nine right."

Coming around in a fast turning'n'burning turn with the afterburners lit, the landing gear of the Phantom came down while at a near-ninety degree angle of bank, before the aircraft snapped onto the horizontal and descended towards the runway. The heavy carrier-specification undercarriage hit the runway hard, the nose gear leg landing only half-a-second after the main legs did. The air-brakes slammed open behind the main undercarriage and a huge parachute billowed behind the tail.

Harry was taxiing off the runway onto the stand, when he and the Phantom was met by a small ground crew who marshalled him into a parking space. Standing on the brakes, he clenched his hands above his head, signalling for the crew to dive under the still-running jet and put the chocks in place. When they were out of the way, he cut the brake chute and retracted the mechanical air brakes before opening the canopy, running the engines down.

Slapping the release on his harness, Harry arched his back slightly to relieve the building aches from several thousand miles attached to a chair full of explosives. Disarming it, he stood up, pulling himself up by holding onto the rim of the windscreen and pulling his legs up onto the seat. After leaving his helmet on the front bang seat, he performed a minor feat of acrobatics, shifting himself along the side of the outside of the aircraft to retrieve a bag of his kit from the back cockpit, dropping it into the arms of one of the USAF erks. Walking along the wing, Harry dropped onto the concrete next to the afterburner cones which were still hot enough for him to light a cigar on.

"If you could see about getting the brake chute repacked." Harry requested the USAF Sergeant, signing off on a form for the refuelling of the aircraft before shouldering his pack; "Charge it to SOCOM."

Taking a puff on the cigar, he glanced up as a dark-blue Dodge Charger which pulled up. Stepping out of it, a distinctly older Gibbs walked over as the remaining occupants began to climb out.

"Damn Marine, you haven't changed a bit." Harry commented.

"Now that's a lie." Gibbs replied gruffly.

"Okay, you got more grey." admitted Harry.

"The years haven't exactly left you unharmed." stated Gibbs, looking Harry up and down; "It's been 'bout twenty years."

"Nineteen-ish. Kuwait. Bloody mess." Harry chuckled, turning towards the remainder of the party.

"That's one way to put it." Gibbs replied, clapping a hand on Harry's shoulder before walking towards the car.

A moment later, Ziva had crossed the few yards to Harry from the car and wrapped him in a hug, nearly knocking him off his feet.

"HARRY! Why didn't you tell me you were coming out here?" she demanded.

"Didn't know I was until a few hours ago, besides, I didn't know you were out here." he replied with an easy smile, wrapping his arms around her shoulders as she kissed him on each cheek.

"I take it you two know each-other?" said Gibbs with a raised eyebrow.

"Old friends." Ziva admitted.

"Worked together a few times." said Harry, keeping an eye on Gibbs whose eyebrow was frozen high, muttering to Ziva; "Oh dear, it now looks like Gibbs is imagining what I look like without my head."

"I've never encountered someone so incapable of changing their facial expressions." Ziva whispered, releasing Harry.

"Never try playing poker against him unless you know him well enough to see the facial expressions." Harry replied loudly, making sure that Gibbs had plenty of reasons to want his head. "I won't be responsible for my actions in a moment Ziva..." Harry murmured in her ear, causing her to let go of him suddenly, a slight blush on her face.

"This is DiNozzo." she introduced the final member of the trio who had been in the car; "His specialisation lies in comic relief."

"Hey, I'll have you know I'm a highly-trained field agent!" protested DiNozzo; "I'm not just highly popular with the girls."

Harry and Ziva met each-other's gazes for a moment before turning to face DiNozzo.

"Comic relief." they chorused.

"Tony." said the American, extending a hand to the Englishman who grinned and replied; "Harry to one and all."

"I'm taking it that you didn't bother with airlines coming over from old England?" asked Tony as they walked towards the car.

"No, much faster my way, did it in under four hours on the great north circle." Harry grinned; "Probably upset a load of environmentalists, but it was loud, fast and fun."

"Now you're sounding like my kind of guy. Ziva, why didn't you tell us you had interesting friends?" Tony demanded.

"Tony, I don't think he swings that way." Ziva smirked.

Harry swore he heard a huff of 'children' from the direction of Gibbs. Opening the boot of the Dodge Charger, Harry dumped his bag in there before climbing into the back of the car with Ziva while Tony took the front passenger seat and Gibbs the driver's seat.

"So what's going on at NCIS at the moment Gibbs?" Harry asked, relaxing into something far more comfortable than Martin Baker's best rocket seats.

"Marine Security Guard trainer from Quantico. A Staff Sergeant. Found in a Civil War casket exhumed by the Smithsonian and opened on camera." Gibbs replied, firing up the car; "A Union soldier in full Union uniform, except for his mobile."

"Yeah, guess that put a damper on the archaeologists." Harry stated.

"Kinda like that film-" began Tony before being cut off by Gibbs.

"Tony." he barked; "Anyway, we got the body into the custody of our ME, all the evidence we have so far to our labs and then came and got you, that's about as far as we've got."

"I need to swing by the British Embassy." said Harry; "Check in, make sure they're ready to cover up me blowing up something or stealing something, again."

"Like what?" asked Tony.

"Potter was, until the case got shut down by SECNAV, the principle suspect in two seperate cases which involved two retired United States Navy heavy cruisers vanishing while waiting to be scrapped." Gibbs explained.

"Moi?" Harry tried to look innocent; "Slander!"

It didn't work, Ziva was nearly having a fit suppressing her laughter.

* * *

 **NCIS Headquarters, Washington Navy Yard, Washington D.C**

Sunset was well advanced when they finally arrived outside the monolithic red brick building housing the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Climbing out, Harry grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder.

"Tony, go fuel the car!" ordered Gibbs, having not taken the keys out of the ignition; "David, keep Potter out of trouble while I get him a pass."

He then strode off in the direction of the doors, leaving Harry and Ziva alone.

"How are you managing?" Harry asked quietly.

"I take life day by day." shrugged Ziva, taking a deep breath; "It's not easy... look, can we finish today's work and talk about it later?"

Harry simply reached down and squeezed her hand in reassurance, before both of them schooled their expressions as Gibbs returned, clipping a badge onto the front of the flying suit which Harry was still wearing and sweeping past without another word.

"Yeah, he's been like that most of the time I've known him." Harry answered Ziva's unspoken question.

Sat on the edge of a desk in the squad-room, known, apparently, by the agents as 'the bullpen', Harry finished nibbling on a takeaway pizza which served as a very late lunch and turned on his laptop to find a video call awaiting him. Clicking accept, the face of one Sirius Black filled the screen.

"Hey Sirius." Harry greeted him.

" _Harry, heard you've retired and vanished off somewhere?_ " asked Sirius, his voice slightly distorted through the speakers.

"Evans and the other people who had to rubber stamp it decided it was time to accept my application to retire. I finished my last tour of duty and then I got an offer from an old colleague which I didn't feel like refusing." Harry shrugged; "After all the politics, the fighting and the stress of The Regiment, I figured time to take some time out. Jackie Jackson should be able to hold things together without me. I buggered off to Washington."

" _What are you doing out there then?_ " asked Sirius.

"Law enforcement." Harry said with a straight face, more than could be said for Sirius who was nearly howling with laughter.

" _I seem to remember the first time I met you was you breaking me out of jail._ " commented Sirius when he finally gathered himself together.

* * *

" _Right, you have one hour before I withdraw and come back with a helicopter gunship." Roger Bailey, his MI5 handler stated, glancing at his watch while keeping one hand on the Brave class patrol boat's wheel._

 _Harry nodded and lowered night-vision goggles over his eyes, slipping down to the main deck and over the side to where a waiting boat was bobbing, attached by steel cables to the ninety-foot patrol boat. At over twenty feet, the offshore powerboat racer he was using wasn't that small, though dwarfed by the Brave. However, it was fast._

 _Standing at the controls, he fired up the outboard motor, and releasing the Cougar from the Brave, Harry opened the throttle. A few moments later, the three hundred horsepower motor burbled into life. Approaching his target slowly as to not create a massive wake or a lot of noise, it took a quarter of an hour before, in the green monochrome of his night-vision, an immense triangular pillar emerged from the sea._

 _He grinned behind the shemagh that was over his lower face as he saw just a lone Auror on the jetty, back facing the sea, gazing into a brazier. Harry cut the engine and allowed the remaining momentum and the swell to carry him next to the jetty. An ancient-looking rope dangled from a bollard which he quickly knotted around a hold on the boat. Silently, he pulled himself up behind the Auror before grabbing him around the shoulders with his left arm and pressed a chloroform soaked rag to his captive's mouth and nose._

 _It meant that the captive Auror ceased struggling after a few moments. Harry dragged him to the shore and laid him down on the shingle before returning. On the far side of the jetty was an old barge which served as the prisoner ferry. He quietly unzipped the bag on his back and pulled a pair of RDX-PETN charges – Semtex – out by their lanyards. Pushing a remote detonation device into the plastic explosive, he knotted them together and threw them into the hold of the dilapidated barge._

 _Pushing out the characteristic mental attacks of the patrolling Dementors with his own mental defences, Harry left the jetty and entered the prison complex. Between the outer sea walls and the triangular pillar was a dash of twenty yards. He quickly calculated that the Dementors, six of which patrolled in three pairs, a pair on each side, were closer to the outer wall than the tower._

 _There was no cover, but Harry dashed out into the path of the Dementors, which were at the corner of the tower, and threw himself prone. The creatures didn't seem to notice him, until when they were ten feet away. Harry rose, a phantom in the darkness of night. There was a soft hiss as the twin ginunting cleared their sheaths._

 _Eskrima was about the flow of the body, it was a dance. Utilising both blades, he hacked the Dementors into their constituent parts, moving between the two time and time again until they were spread across the ground in multiple separate pieces. The youngest ever master of a martial art designed for lightly-armed tribal warriors to kill Spanish Conquistadors in full plate armour versus two hellish creatures with no weapons save for fear and the utility to remove the souls from victims. It was a pathetic match really._

 _Harry dropped back to the sea wall and waited as two more pairs of patrolling Dementors passed by, not sensing nor seeing the remains of two of their compatriots. When they'd passed, leaving his path clear, he broke cover and dashed across to the entrance to the tower._

 _It was locked with nothing more than a massive padlock, which was heavily enchanted. Sheathing his twin short-swords, he unslung the Saiga shotgun. Slamming in a magazine of wax slugs, he moved back a few yards and took aim at the ring of the padlock, which was much less enchanted. At the moment Harry pulled the trigger, a gust of wind arrived, sweeping away the sound, reducing it just to a faint hiss._

 _Harry quickly grabbed the padlock as it fell, the shackle broken from the catch inside the lock. After lowering the lock to the ground silently, he slung the shotgun to his back and advanced into the prison. Knowing where his target was, Harry slipped through the first few levels where minor criminals were kept. The Auror barracks was between them and the high security section of the prison, which had him nervous._

 _It went flawlessly, right up until the moment he exited the spiral into the highest level of the high security section. A patrolling Dementor came upon him right at the moment he stepped in. Harry quickly drew one short-sword, and as the creature reached out towards him, he grabbed the rotting limb and twisted it behind the Dementor. He thrust the sword twice through its ribcage before slicing what passed for a head from its shoulders._

 _Moving quickly to the end of the corridor, he moved between the patrolling Dementors with incredible stealth. The barred door at the end was between him and his target. Harry checked the hinges and the padlock before sheathing his sword and reaching into a pouch on his combat belt. Withdrawing a test tube full of concentrated sulphuric acid, he dripped it onto each of the hinges and watched as the metal melted, bent and deformed._

 _Holding up the door as it came loose from the destroyed hinges, Harry shifted it to lean against the wall and stepped in. The first thing he saw was a dog curled up in the corner on a pile of ragged blankets, which suddenly shifted into the human form of his target, tall, haggard, bearded and with long hair._

" _Who the hell are you!" he rasped._

" _Doesn't matter right now Black. I'm getting you out of here." he whispered back, pulling a couple more test tubes from the pouch on the opposite side of his belt; "Quickly, temporary energy potions and one which will block out the worst effects of the Dementors before I dismember them."_

" _Why should I trust you?" Black demanded._

" _You don't have to, you can stay or you can get out." Harry replied._

 _The prisoner nodded and quickly drank the potions as Harry spray-painted the wall in luminous red letters._

" _You just wrote 'You got your ass beat' on the wall of Azkaban." deadpanned Black._

" _Glad to see your brain and your eyes aren't as dysfunctional as your body looks." Harry sniped, grabbing the empty test tubes and putting them into the pouch; "Now let's move."_

 _Loading a magazine of slugs into the Saiga as they left the cell, Harry was immediately assaulted by the screams of a woman from a nearby cell._

" _GUARDS! GUARDS! BLACK IS ESCAPE-" she screamed, he spun around and fired into the cell. Bellatrix, Rudolphus and Rabastan were killed by a burst of automatic fire from a Saiga 12 shotgun. How ironic, a 'muggle' weapon._

 _The Dementors swarmed towards them, but in the narrow corridor, all they achieved was to have their skulls demolished by shotgun slugs. And whether they were truly alive or not, no being can function properly without a connection to its brain. Harry loaded a fresh magazine into the Saiga and slung it on his back. If the Aurors were awakened, he didn't want to kill any of them, so hand-to-hand combat it was._

" _Move move move!" he barked at Sirius, who was following cautiously._

 _Harry dashed down the spiral staircase and through the corridor outside the rooms of the Auror barracks before any of their occupants emerged, except for the last one. A rattan baston cleared his pack as a half-asleep male nearly fell out of his room. Harry didn't hesitate, the baston slammed into several parts of the man's nervous system before a blow to his solar plexus rendered him unconscious._

 _They ran through the door at the end which Harry quickly barred with a plank which had obviously been used as that at some time given the hooks for it to sit on mounted on the door._

" _Dog form!" Harry ordered as they emerged into the low security section._

 _A pair of Dementors were in the corridor which he swiftly destroyed with his twin short-swords, the baston returning to his pack, Sirius following in dog form. Bursting out of the front entrance to the prison, Harry found the two remaining patrolling Dementor pairs waiting for them._

 _Harry didn't wait. Each of them met with a burst of fire from the Saiga-12 as he kept running across the open ground. Sirius ran after him, paws crossing the barren island fast enough to keep up with the young man who seemed to be able to move faster than the wind._

 _Dashing across the jetty, Harry dropped into the boat, hitting the ignition switch at the same time as he drew one of the swords and hacked through the ancient, brittle rope holding them in place. Sirius launched himself into the back of the boat and took human form again._

 _With no time for subtlety as spells began to rain down from the sea wall towards where they were, he opened the throttle slightly, wrenched the boat around to point out to sea before jamming it open fully. Steering with one hand as the other held down the push-to-talk on the radio, Harry sent their prearranged radio message._

" _Cape Matapan, I say again, Cape Matapan."_

 _He and Roger had arranged that if all went well and their objective was achieved without incident, he would radio that to the Brave. If he'd come out without Sirius, returning minus one, he'd have radioed 'Trafalgar'. And if he hadn't emerged, nobody would have radioed anything._

" _Roger Cougar One, you are on scopes, steer bearing two-two-zero." came Roger's reply; "You are five miles out, I'll put lights on, as well as the kettle."_

" _I copy." Harry answered, steering the boat south-west; "Black, give me about four and a half minutes to get us to safety and I'll explain everything."_

 _In the short time it had taken to send the radio message, the racing boat was leaping from wave to wave at seventy miles and hour. Pulling out a dark-green briefcase from beside his seat, Harry flipped it open, revealing a basic computer. He booted it up, rapidly typed in a password before flicking a toggle switch hidden beneath a red cover beside the keyboard. Before the Aurors could reach their ferry, a fireball erupted from the hold, blasting apart the deck and blowing the bottom out of it. As shards of wood debris rained down, the ferry broke in half with the sound of wood shattering. It then slowly settled on the bottom of Azkaban harbour._

 _The escape was complete. It would take just four minutes to rendezvous with Roger. Those four minutes later and Harry could see the lights of the patrol boat. They raced past it before he throttled back and circled around, the hulls of the two vessels bumping together lightly in the swell._

 _Harry quickly locked two ropes onto rings on the speedboat, and then braced slightly as a hoist caught the slack and lifted the boat free of the sea and brought it out of the water. Where the forward Bofors installation had been on the Brave, there was now a hull support rack on which the Cougar could rest. He and Black climbed over the side and dropped onto the deck where Roger waited with two mugs of tea, well laced with alcohol._

" _You're just a kid." commented Sirius to Harry._

" _Nearly thirteen." Harry corrected._

* * *

Smirking as he recalled the breakout, Harry contemplated what Sirius said next.

" _So, are you coming back to England any time soon?_ "

"Probably, but I'm here for now. I can fly back to Britain without too much effort." Harry shrugged.

" _I guess you're due a holiday._ " Sirius admitted.

"Damn right I am." agreed Harry; "Anyway, why the hell are you phoning me... it should be lunchtime over there."

" _I was perfectly happy lying in bed until a few hours ago, as was my bed-partner_." said Sirius, not bothering to elaborate.

Despite a dose of the Elixir of Life combined with a de-aging potion to give him back the twelve years of his life stolen from him, the imprisonment in Azkaban had left its scars. Unfortunately, none of those scars stopped him bedding anything vaguely human, good looking and with a vagina.

Not his godson's style at all. Harry had only had one girlfriend during twenty years as the UK's premier special operator, being the first poor sod to be chucked into any war zone that came into the sights of 10 Downing Street.

"Try and get a few brief naps through the night, then stay up through the day and get your sleep in the right place." Harry advised.

" _Yeah, I'll try._ " Sirius replied.

"Right, I need to head to my Washington house." Harry stated, glancing at his watch.

" _Take care, don't die too badly._ " Sirius ended the call.

Harry closed the laptop as Ziva walked into the bullpen, shouldering her bag.

"Have you got somewhere to stay?" she asked.

"Mhmm. Set up a more-than-comfortable safe house back in the early nineties." Harry replied; "I don't have a car readily available though."

"I'll drive you over." Ziva offered with a smirk, causing Harry to shudder slightly.

* * *

 **Chesapeake Hall, on Chesapeake Bay, Virginia**

Having arrived at his Washington home, Harry headed down into the basement where he unlocked the armoury of the manor, revealing a room containing a large amount of armament and ordnance. As could be expected of his line of work, most of said armament and ordnance would be frowned upon in polite circles. Really frowned upon. Anti-tank rockets, fifty-calibre anti-materiel rifles, Carl Gustav recoilless rifles, battle rifles, grenade launchers and carbines were usually, at best, the preserve of the police. Most of it would rarely find its way out of military hands.

Dumping his hold-all bag, one which carried the weaponry that he took with him everywhere, in the corner by the armoury door before he departed, locking it back up. Pocketing the key as he headed back up to the Manor, Harry walked glanced around him, past varnished-wood panels to a door, walking into the room beyond.

The room was warm and comfortable, with drawn curtains covering a couple of windows looking out onto the bay, a squishy leather sofa and a huge open fireplace with a log already crackling with flames. Ziva was half draped across the sofa, leaving enough room to settle next to her. They relaxed in silence, Ziva staring into the flames for a few minutes before she spoke.

"I told you a bit of what happened. But I didn't tell you everything, I didn't know if I could bring myself to tell you." she admitted quietly; "I didn't know if I could face you after telling you."

"Ziva..." Harry whispered, taking both her hands in his.

"I told you Ari was dead. He turned traitor and started attacking NCIS. Killed one of the agents." Ziva stated; "I lured him into a trap like an animal and killed him in cold blood. I just... he was... I put him in the trap and just shot him. My own brother!"

"You stopped him hurting more people. We don't end lives without reason. We have to be cold, calculating and clinical so that other people don't get caught in our fights." Harry said bluntly.

Suddenly, a month of pent-up emotion erupted and she was suddenly in Harry's embrace, sobbing like a child into his shoulder. It was too much for her to hold in any longer. Closing his eyes, Harry sighed. Their way of life, one of secrets, bloodshed and betrayal only led to destroyed lives.

It could have been minutes or hours later, but Ziva lay silent, her head resting on his shoulder. Harry laid her on the sofa, working off her boots and pulling a tartan rug over her before he finished the few jobs he needed to do before getting some sleep. Walking through the manor to the garage, Harry opened it up, grinning slightly as he looked around at the cars.

There were several Mustangs, Corvettes and a Dodge Challenger, but he rarely used them, having had them shipped out to the manor when setting it up as a safe house shortly after the Battle of Mogadishu. The engines needed de-inhibiting and inspecting before he would drive them. However, there was a car that was fine to use, his slightly sinister-looking Bentley Continental T Mulliner which was his runabout day-to-day.

Climbing into the comfort of the driver's seat, he started the car up, purring out onto the gravel drive and remotely closing the garage. Leaving the car outside the front door, Harry produced a cigar and a lighter, taking a deep breath of the aromatic smoke as he looked around him.

The gravel drive down from Chesapeake Hall to the gates was lined with leylandii. The manor itself was an impressive piece of colonial architecture, approached by the drive to a gravel parking area in the neatly kept garden, around a fountain. The mansion, standing at the head of the drive was a palatial affair of red brick with white windows and pillared frontages.

After a few minutes, as his cigar burnt down, Harry decided to head into the house, hit the pillow and get some much-needed sleep. In the past couple of years, sleep hadn't come easily, mostly because he didn't have time to.


	2. 2: Silver War Pt2

**Chesapeake Hall, on Chesapeake Bay, Virginia**

After a brisk workout consisting of a morning run around the small estate and some routine practice of his favoured martial arts, none of which were the Hollywood staple of backflips and Oriental war cries with only vowels. Eventually, Harry showered and dressed in some casual clothes, jeans, combat boots, a t-shirt and a khaki hoodie before walking down to the kitchen. There he found Ziva sat at the table, idly paring an apple with her knife.

"Sleep well?" Harry asked.

"I shouldn't make a habit of sleeping on the sofa." Ziva grimaced; "But it's better than some places."

"I didn't want to wake you up." Harry explained, walking over to the fridge to have a look at what he had.

"Thanks. Sorry for last night-" began Ziva.

"Don't." Harry cut her off; "I wouldn't be much of a friend if I wasn't willing to listen."

"How do you do it?" Ziva suddenly asked as Harry was pulling a pack of cereal from a cupboard. He raised an eyebrow at her; "I mean you always seem calm, completely in control, confident that what you're doing and have done is right."

Harry contemplated it for a moment, sitting down at the table opposite Ziva before answering. "That's not entirely true. I never let emotion or doubt take over when lives are on the line, and I do not allow people to think emotions or doubt are taking over, never, ever. That doesn't mean there hasn't been more than one occasion where I've been second-guessing myself."

"Wish I could do that convincingly." admitted Ziva.

"It's a product of crushing any emotion I had as a child." Harry commented; "So I'm glad you can't. Emotions are what make us human, and it's when someone loses all emotion that they become inhuman."

"Thanks." Ziva repeated. "Anyway, what do you think of the case?"

"An interesting introduction to military investigation." said Harry, a bit thrown off by the sudden change in conversation; "I can't say I know enough about the investigation to begin drawing conclusions."

"I suppose. Anyway, what time is Gibbs expecting us in?"

"About an hour." Harry replied.

* * *

 **NCIS HQ, Washington Navy Yard.**

The Bentley purred to a halt outside NCIS HQ, between the shore where the old destroyer USS Barry was moored and the big red-brick building housing NCIS. Harry and Ziva climbed out to find Gibbs stood outside the building, sipping from a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

"Potter, David." he greeted them with a nod, walking over as Harry hefted a bag of kit from the boot of the Bentley.

"Any news on the case?" Harry asked, taking a swig from his own Thermos flask of coffee and pulling the bag over his shoulder.

"Our man was shot in the head by a muzzle-loading weapon, powder-and-ball." Gibbs replied gruffly, falling into step with them as they walked up towards the entrance.

"That's... unpleasant." Ziva commented with a wince.

" Yeah, but it wasn't what killed him. He survived, but was left in a cast iron casket. Buried alive." said Gibbs grimly.

"And that's even more unpleasant." was Harry's response.

"You got that right." Gibbs said as Harry locked the car, gesturing with the key fob over his shoulder; "Nice wheels by the way."

"It's pretty good for when the weather's too bad for me to fly around Europe." Harry grinned; "Had it flown out a few months ago when I started being over here more."

"Let's head in. Director's probably going to grill you, she's annoyed that I slipped a piece of paper from when I was Acting Director into one of the filing cabinets, putting you on the team." said Gibbs.

"I still haven't forgiven you about that." Harry glared at him; "You owe me big time."

"I know." Gibbs admitted as they breezed through security on the retired marine's security card; "I'll get you issued with all the bits of paper to prove you're working here."

"That would probably prevent the number of casualties I inflict in the next little while." Harry nodded in agreement as they walked up the stairs to the squad room.

"I've got two current agents besides myself. Anthony DiNozzo Junior. Father's a businessman and a bastard, son's brash, arrogant womaniser, never seems to take anything seriously and has a habit of hazing the other agents. He's actually a damn good investigator, ex-drugs, gangs and homicide from Baltimore." Gibbs explained; "Then I've got Timothy McGee, self-effacing son of a Navy Admiral, father's a bastard who hates the fact his son's an expert computer technician and forensic investigator. As a result, his self-confidence has been shot to bits."

"Add myself and you, we're a right lot of messed up families." Harry chuckled; "And the lovely Ziva."

"Flattery won't get you anywhere Harry." Ziva chimed in.

"I can cook." Harry commented, deadpan.

"Well that's different." she replied, noting that a slight smirk had momentarily appeared on Gibbs' face.

"Anyway Gibbs, your director been pressing you for details about me?" asked Harry.

"First thing she did when she found out you were on the team was drag me up to her office and chew me out." Gibbs grunted.

"Doesn't she remember that you're a retired Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant. You are the chewer, not the chewee." Harry rolled his eyes.

"But anyway, I've put her off and redirected her on the subject of you, repeatedly." Gibbs continued.

"Then tell her the truth. That I'm a top NATO fighter pilot. Over two-thousand hours on MiG-29s, over three-thousand hours on Phantoms, instructor qualified for both. One-thousand hours each on F-15s and F-16s, five Red Flag exercises, '93, '94, '97, '99 and 2000." Harry shrugged.

"That's only part of the truth." Gibbs noted.

"Too bad." said Harry.

"How the hell have you got that many hours anyway?" asked Gibbs.

"I took up flying as a hobby, arranged by Her Majesty's Government as a teenager during the holidays, including classic fast jets." Harry shrugged; "Got collecting aeroplanes, plus the Government was very keen to have me stick around, so I had 'arranged' a few more opportunities, after the Gulf War, there was a big Special Forces debriefing in America, and I got to stay at Nellis and flew F-15s and occasionally F-16s with the Fighter Weapons School."

"So, what, a kid who'd been flying old jets got to fly the hottest aircraft we had?" Gibbs said incredulously.

"Not exactly, I'd been flying RAF trainers like the Hunter and Hawk, and had more than a few hours with the Phantom OCU to sweeten me to working for the British government." Harry replied; "And when the Phantoms were cut from the frontline, almost all of them ended up being sold to scrap merchants, whose businesses I had acquired."

"Of course you did, how silly of me to expect otherwise." Gibbs muttered.

"So I had a working Phantom which I flew out to Nellis, and between about two hours a day on the F-15, I got a few lessons from some old Phantom veteran crews on it. I then had it upgraded a lot during the mid-late nineties." Harry continued, ignoring the ex-marine's muttering; "Ever since, I've used it as my daily driver, apart from when I was flying Fulcrums at Rostock-Laage with Jagdgeschwader 73 during '97. I even got a few chances to fly close air support for the SAS with the Phantom, especially on the most covert missions where we couldn't risk security by bringing in the air forces."

"By the way, I sent you an e-mail a few months ago, you didn't respond." said Gibbs.

"I don't read e-mails, because once you start reading e-mails, you're doomed." Harry replied condescendingly, ducking reflexively the hand swinging at the back of his head. "You've been doing that for too long, it's getting predictable."

"Indeed. I better go, Director's on the balcony looking like she's imagining what I look like without my head." Gibbs commented, peeling off and heading for another staircase.

"Autopsy report's just arrived." Ziva commented from behind her computer; "Shot at a high angle with a smoothbore weapon. A pocket pistol or derringer most likely, because at that angle, any further away than a foot or two and they would have been in the ground."

"Don't assume things unless you are certain. He could have been stood at a higher level than the shooter." Harry chided her.

"But that's not what killed him." Ziva stated; "His fingers showed marks of scrabbling against the underside of the coffin lid."

"Unpleasant." Harry nodded; "Any leads?"

"Not yet." replied Ziva; "And my co-workers aren't even here yet."

"Late starters?" he asked.

"Something like that." Ziva confirmed.

"Potter! Director wants you!" yelled Gibbs from the balcony.

"Looks like I need to go." Harry said, passing her the kitbag he'd brought.

A minute later, he was stood in front of a desk occupied by a middle-aged redhead, Director Jennifer Shepard of NCIS.

"Your file is rather skeletal, Colonel Potter." the Director commented as Harry stood at ease in her office; "In fact it tells me nothing about you."

Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a wodge of A5 paper, mostly covered in black marker-pen which made reading it difficult.

"This is the basics of my ground skills. EOD, explosives use, long range marksmanship, CQC, Special Air Service knife-fighting champion '99, 2000, 2001, 2009, 2010. Trained in plain-clothes infiltration, armed infiltration, Arctic, Jungle, Temperate and Desert trained, Urban Combat, H.A.L.O, H.A.H.O, technical diving, armoured vehicle driving, use of rocket weapons, interrogation, resistance to interrogation, hand-to-hand combat. Served in Desert Storm, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq." Harry read out; "I must admit I've never bothered reading my own file. I wouldn't recommend it, it's a rather dry read."

Shepard huffed and grabbed it from him.

"No awards, no medals." she commented.

"Because having my name appearing in the London Gazette alongside a medal would really work for my covert status." Harry said sarcastically.

"Notations for skill and gallantry beyond expectation." she read on another page, ignoring him; "Flew a severely damaged Harrier GR.9 against surface targets to relieve a patrol pinned down by heavy weapons despite personal risk. Carried a mortally-wounded soldier two-hundred yards under enemy fire to extraction zone. Classified, classified. There must be a dozen classified notations here. How long have you been in covert operations?"

"Twenty years, give or take a few months." Harry shrugged; "Though I have a slightly tacky mantelpiece ornament from my school days, when some homicidal lunatic with parental issues and delusions of adequacy tried to finish me off. Occasionally when I need inspiration, I just talk to his skull."

"I trust you won't be going around removing heads." commented a voice behind himvolunteering to prove how good an idea it was to surprise a special forces soldier.

Harry spun around, his ginunting short-sword appearing in his hand from the back of his belt where it had been sheathed. His right hand suddenly had the MEUSOC M1911, that he'd had tucked away in a holster in the back of his waistband, aimed at the voice faster than the eye could see. With the safety flicked off and the hammer cocked back as he spun around, Harry was moments away from either cutting the person's throat or shooting them when he saw Gibbs right behind him.

"Gibbs, you nearly became the first." Harry growled, lowering the knife and reapplying the safety catch on the pistol he'd drawn from his waistband in the other hand; "Don't bloody-well sneak up on me."

"If you'd mind not pointing my own gun at me." Gibbs requested, reminding Harry of the fact he'd 'borrowed' it some twenty years before from Gibbs; "I've just sent Tony and Ziva out to go and check the location that the casket was found."

"Thank you Agent Gibbs." said the Director.

"Gibbs, really bad idea to sneak up on someone who's spent most of the last twenty years in one war zone after another." Harry stated, sheathing the knife and holstering the pistol.

"I'll take it on advisement." replied Gibbs. "Come on Potter, you and I are going to find the people who actually excavated it and interview them."

"You may go Colonel." the director told Harry's fast-retreating back.

* * *

"What the hell happened to you? Ziva, you look like someone dragged you through a truck-full of mud." Harry commented, walking into the squad room with Gibbs, each clutching a cup of coffee.

"He;" Ziva hissed, glaring at Tony; "Decided to pull rank on me to force me to crawl through a dump-truck full of dirt."

"And he's not currently choking to death on his own genitalia..?" Harry commented wryly, taking a swig of coffee.

"I thought it would be bad to kill a co-worker during my first week at work. My second or third perhaps." she replied; "And since the lousy apartment the Israeli Embassy set me up with is over an hour away by public transport and your car was gone, I couldn't take my lunch-hour to get cleaned up."

"For a man who believes he is god's gift to women Tony, you really don't make the grade." said Gibbs with the air of somebody lecturing a disobedient two-year-old; "Three divorces have informed me that possibly the worst way to get on a woman's good side is to force her to crawl through a truck full of muck."

"Sorry Boss" said Tony.

"Don't bother, it was a job someone had to do." Gibbs stated, throwing himself into his chair.

"So, our new probie..." Tony commented.

"Don't try hazing him. He'll just shoot you." advised Gibbs.

"And that's a fact. I've already nearly shot Gibbs today." Harry smirked

"My god, are you some British, male version of Ziva? Professional butt-kicker?" Tony continued.

"Yes." Harry replied before breaking into mocking laughter; "You know, I ought to introduce you to my godfather, who is a successful womaniser. Sort-of seven girls a week type. Even though he's in his forties."

Sirius was in fact in his fifties, but due to the assistance of the Flamels, he was biologically forty-five, mentally going on fifteen.

"Enough children!" barked Gibbs; "Don't we have a case to solve. Abby's just called me and told me she's found something."

They quickly vacated their desks as Harry fell into step next to Gibbs.

"So, how did you know Ziva?" he asked.

"I was in Israel for a while, when she was in the IDF, we often went on the same missions." Harry shrugged; "Sort-of became her mentor for a while, then friends who could rely on each-other."

"She a good learner?" asked Gibbs.

"Very. Worth keeping."

A minute later they crowded into the outer part of the forensics laboratory as Gibbs headed for the inner part.

"Abbs?" he asked the young woman wearing a pink suit with her back to them.

"I look... like a freak." she announced; "Well?"

"People bandy about the word freak too easily." Harry stated.

"Who's he?" Abby asked.

"An old friend and colleague of mine." Gibbs interjected; "I asked for him."

"I would come over and give you a hug, but..." Abby began, before gesturing to the high heels she was wearing.

"Why?" asked Gibbs.

"One of the Director's new admin weenies brought me this last night. It's the NCIS dress code. He said I was in violation." Abby explained, handing Gibbs a sheet of paper.

"He did, did he?" said Gibbs quietly; "Harry, remind me if any more people interfere with my team to shoot them."

"It's bad enough that I have to wear a monkey suit for court appearances, but every day?" she continued.

"I think you look nice, Abby." interjected Ziva, causing Harry to wince as her misjudgement had Abby's face going stormy.

"Nice? You think I look nice?" she demanded; "I look like- like-"

"Career girl barbie." Tony added helpfully.

"Oh my God, I do." Abby suddenly panicked; "I can't work like this Gibbs."

"I'll take care of it Abbs." said Gibbs.

"I'm allergic to polyester, it makes me itch." babbled Abby, clutching a stuffed toy rhino; "It's a medical condition, I can get a note from the doctor."

"Abby, I said, I'll take care of it." Gibbs replied; "Can we get back to work now?"

"Do I have to wear the shoes?" she asked impishly. In response, Gibbs scrunched up the paper and threw it into a nearby bin.

"The circuit board on the cell phone was damaged, but we managed to get it working again." Abby explained after kicking off her high heels; "The battery shut down on October third, two-thousand and nine."

"Last twenty-two calls were to Nine-One-One." said McGee, eyeing Harry curiously.

"None of them went through" added Abby.

"He was calling from inside the casket." breathed Tony.

"Yep, cast iron and buried underground." McGee confirmed.

"I don't think anyone's calling plan extends that far." said Abby.

"Random selection of numbers, usually repeats." Harry stated, stepping forward to look at the screen closely; "No pattern as such..."

"He was running low on oxygen, I assume that he was trying to call another number and hit random keys." McGee stated.

That was the moment that Harry's phone rang. He snapped it open.

"Potter."

" _Just to confirm a tac check flight nineteen-hundred hours at Andrews day after tomorrow, pending which, five days time, a night sortie of F-16s at twenty-three fifteen for one hour._ " replied one of the operations managers at the Air National Guard 121st Squadron at Andrews for which Harry had volunteered to instruct.

"Copied." Harry confirmed, snapping the phone closed again. Then he narrowed his eyes at the keypad. "Abby, is your marine's phone a full keyboard, touchscreen or an old-fashioned one like mine?"

"Like yours, except non-folding." she replied.

"You have to hit the keys multiple times to get a letter in a text message?" he asked.

"Yeah... wait, you're a genius!" Abby exclaimed, even as Harry commandeered her computer, calling up an empty text file and began typing rapidly, manually converting the numbers into their corresponding letters before putting in the spaces.

"So those random numbers in the text message weren't random at all. Staff Sergeant Sorrow was leaving us a message... from the grave."

Harry wondered if she should be reprimanded for sounding far too happy that it was from the grave. Ah well, if she was happy, good morale more often than not meant better results. Within seconds, he'd turned the mess of numbers into a readable if cryptic sentence.

'Only got half. Oxbow not on his side, Kearns, don't let him get safety deposit box.'

"Curious. I must admit to having drawn a few conclusions about the case." Ziva stated.

"Well, don't keep us in suspense." demanded Gibbs.

"I got a quick look at the body, the angle at which Sorrow was shot. And my suspicions that he was wearing that uniform before being stuffed in the coffin. He was buried in haste, the gunshot wound was from someone quite a lot shorter than him delivered at moderately close range." Ziva mused; "It's possible that someone was distracting him which means we have multiple suspects... I personally believe that he was wounded not far from where he was buried as carrying around cast-iron coffins attracts attention and is difficult given the weight. 'Only got half' seems to refer to an object, Oxbow is what the British call a lake which was a meandering river which eroded a straight line, leaving a meander cut off, just a loop of water. Kearns evidently is someone he trusts."

"Get me everything you can on Kearns, and possibly Oxbow if it doesn't relate to a river formation." Gibbs ordered sharply; "If nothing comes up, we can look for geographical features."

"Not wanting to sound melodramatic boss, but the half-thing, if Potter's right about the river-thing, could they be referring to a map or something." said Tony.

"We don't have enough evidence Tony." replied Gibbs; "But I've learnt not to discount the most stupid or unlikely theories out there, as there are a lot of stupid people out there."

"I'm running his social number through the banking system..." said McGee as Harry surrendered the computer back to Abby.

"And... Staff Sergeant Sorrow has a safety deposit box paid for five years at the Commonwealth Vault and Safe Deposit in Ashburn." reported Abby as results began appearing on the screen.

"McGee, get me a warrant." Gibbs barked.

"Getting it done boss." replied the young agent.

"Potter, get me into that safety deposit box the moment that McGee gets that warrant, take Ziva with you. Tony, I've got a job for you." ordered Gibbs; "I want you two back before the end of your lunch break."

"We'll take my car, it's fast." Harry commented; "And I have diplomatic immunity with that car registered so I won't get pulled for speeding."

"Is there somewhere where I can clean up?" asked Ziva.

"Yeah, sure. Tonight when you go home." replied Gibbs.

"Once again I want to put laxatives in your coffee Gibbs." Harry muttered, checking a map for the location of the bank, which was down on the way to Norfolk Naval Yard. He cleared his throat and spoke up; "If all goes well, it'll take us something like five-and-a-half hours, given that the place is not far from Richmond."

"Then get moving." ordered Gibbs.

Harry and Ziva, grabbing the warrant even as it was spat out of the fax machine, made their way out and sprinted across the car park to the black Bentley.

"I hope I don't get your seats too muddy." she said, climbing in.

"Don't worry, you know me well enough Ziva that I don't care too much about stuff getting dirty." Harry replied, strapping in and firing up the car.

"That would explain a LOT." Ziva said, her words heavily laden with innuendo.

"Ziva." Harry growled as she laughed.

A moment later, they were racing out across the Navy Yard, heading towards one of the exits. Instead of heading left from the northern exit from the Navy Yard for the Fourteenth Street Bridge across the Potomac, Harry swerved right and floored it towards the Eleventh Street Bridge across the Anacostia and east towards Andrews and Chesapeake Bay.

"We've got enough time for you to get a shower at my place." Harry explained; "If you need some clothes, I've got some spare combats around."

"Thanks. But you're cooking lunch." Ziva smiled.

"Anything for you my lady." Harry said mockingly, swerving around a bus and hanging a sharp right. He met a queue of traffic, so with nothing behind him, he put the gearbox into reverse, racing backwards before lifting off the accelerator suddenly. He shifted into drive and into the manual override as he jerked the car around in a J-turn, roaring away.

"Sometimes it's easy to forget you taught me to drive the way I do." said Ziva; "I just wish the NCIS people were a bit easier to work with... the dirt thing, it wasn't that which annoyed me, it was that Tony was unwilling to do so himself. That really gratered with me."

"Grated Ziva, grated." Harry winced at her mangling of the English language; "But I understand, never get your men to do something you'd be unwilling to do yourself. Anyway, where are you supposed to be staying?"

"The cheapest motel flop house that the Israeli Embassy could get away with." she said through gritted teeth.

"Then consider this an open invitation to stay with me. After a career of tents, makeshift barracks in old shipping containers and draughty old cold war barracks, I'm enjoying all the comfort I can get." offered Harry.

"I'll think about it." Ziva replied as the Bentley positively flew along the motorway, the silent cruise giving way to a muffled roar as he exercised all the horsepower provided by the engine, a brand new one from the Bentley Brooklands production line that he'd had fitted just months before.

Within a short time, he was racing back up the gravel drive, lined with leylandii which led to the manor. Harry wasn't concerned about the Statute of Secrecy as Ziva was already fully aware of magic, besides there was very little magical stuff in the building, and it was confined to a handful of rooms which were sealed in a manner that ensured only he could enter them. A short distance up this drive, he barely slowed for the set of gates which swung open to admit the car.

Soon, the path opened up, heading directly through the neatly kept garden and around a fountain to the front of the house. Ziva's eyes caught sight of the mansion, red brick with white windows and pillared frontages. Harry pulled the car to a halt outside the front and turned off the car, jumping out, locking it once Ziva was out before leading her in.

"Changing rooms, showers, toilets and bath through there. Also, there should be a cabinet with some combats in it." Harry announced having led her up the stairs in the entrance hall to the first floor; "I'll be in the kitchen. And seriously, if the Israeli Embassy can't see fit to give you anything beyond the basics, as you know, I have far too much money to spend in a couple of lifetimes..."

"Thanks." Ziva said, laying a hand on his left shoulder before turning and opening the door, going through into the room beyond, finding a round room with several empty towel rails around it between the three doors opposite her.

Undressing, she dumped her clothes on one of the rails, knowing they'd get cleaned at some point. She opened a wardrobe to find a couple of desert and woodland shirts and trousers. Selecting a set of desert combats, she hung them on a radiator to warm them up and stepped through the door labelled 'Shower', casting a regretful glance at the huge bath sunk into the floor.

Ziva was quickly illuminated by soft lighting as the door behind her swung shut. A small runic device in the ceiling, the closest thing to an artificial Legilimens Harry's employed enchanters could make, sensed the heat she wanted from the water, spraying it out from hundreds of tiny nozzles in the ceiling. He had once explained the process of enchanting such an object, though most of it had washed over her. Mentally slapping herself for the bad pun, Ziva began to wonder what Harry was cooking, as he always came up with something good.

Wishing she had more time to luxuriate, Ziva quickly washed and dried herself, slipping into the nicely-warmed combats, which though a bit large for her, weren't too bad as Harry was, for a soldier, slightly shorter than average and rather thinner than most.

She followed the wonderful aromas, descending the staircase to the entrance hall and heading through another hallway into a slightly plainer bit of the manor which was evidently formerly servants' quarters. Walking down to the kitchen, Ziva froze when she heard Harry's voice. And he sounded exceedingly calm, which with him was 'one step short of shooting someone'.

"Look, I couldn't give a flying moose turd if you're the director of Mossad or the Emperor of the Galactic Empire Eli, there are some things I don't do. Including spying on co-workers, it's something that doesn't generally engender trust."

It wasn't hard for her to work out who he was speaking to.

"Ah, you missed on that lesson, might be why your daughter is in America, the far side of the world from you. You know I never had the chance to grow up with a proper family, but at least I was able to walk away from the bastards who raised me. I doubt you'd let an 'asset' leave."

Ziva winced, that was a nasty jab. Possibly one that her father deserved.

"Okay, that's a lot of money, I'll take it..." Ziva was struck by confusion. Harry had said himself that he had more than enough money to last his lifetime; "AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR SANCTIMONIOUS ARSE YOU MANIPULATIVE BASTARD! You know Eli, every time we've met or spoken, you've managed to make me want to kill you within five minutes. Work out why, you're supposedly an Intelligence Officer, so you should be intelligent enough. After all, I'm just a simple soldier am I not?"

There was the sound of a phone being violently closed.

"Thanks Harry." she said gratefully, slipping past the door.

"I don't do treachery." Harry shrugged; "He wants me to observe you 'for any signs of disloyalty to the Greater Good of Israel'. I could hear the capitalisations of the words greater and good. A delightful conversation."

"He has an unfortunate tendency to be like that." Ziva replied; "He was a shit parent."

"You know my story. Bitter woman hates sister for being beautiful, intelligent as well as loving and marrying a nobleman, takes it out on sister's orphaned son. British Government zealot locks away my rightful guardian without a trial." Harry sighed taking a swig from a hip flask he perpetually kept in the thigh pocket of his left trouser leg. "So I do sympathise."

She stepped back as Harry quickly began putting together their lunch.

* * *

"I'll have to have that again." Ziva stated in satisfaction as she finished her toasted venison sandwich a while later as they raced south towards Ashburn, listening to Kashmir from Led Zeppelin's 'Physical Graffiti' album on the car disc player.

"Thought so." Harry smirked.

"Don't let me inflate your ego any more." she commented mockingly.

"Sweetie, if you want ego, I'd introduce you to my godfather and his Hindenburg-class ego. It's truly mind-boggling that he hasn't collapsed under the weight of it." chuckled Harry as he turned off the main road, slowing down... not at all as he weaved through traffic, cutting several people up and contemplating ramming a Toyota Prius off the road for contaminating his view. Then again the Americans seemed far-too-fond of the abominations.

A few minutes later, they pulled to a halt outside the bank, climbing out of the car. Harry's danger-senses were screaming at him, maybe it was just paranoia, but it had saved his life more than once. Discretely, he patted a backpack from the back of the Bentley's cabin before following Ziva into the bank.

"Federal warrant to search and confiscate the contents of Warren Sorrow's deposit box." Harry said, having found the most senior person in the publicly accessible part of the bank.

They were quickly led to a safe-room by an employee who continuously rambled, annoying him. The one thing he picked up on was that someone had repeatedly tried to claim the deposit box. That was something that he noted, with the intent to find out who exactly had tried.

"You may leave now." Harry 'offered' the vapid woman, who quickly scurried away.

"A bit abrupt don't you think?" asked Ziva.

"I'm a bastard, the sooner people realise that, the better. Warzones aren't conducive to good temperaments, and I've got enough blood on my hands for a regiment of men." Harry shrugged apathetically, before opening the deposit box. "Do Americans usually keep mummified hands and bits of parchment in their deposit boxes."

"Somehow I doubt it." Ziva commented.

Harry unshouldered his bag, raking through it, looking for a couple of items. Turfing out, amongst other things, a cut-down G3 battle rifle of carbine length with a folding stock and a muzzle brake to compensate for increased recoil, a box of flashbangs and a dragon skin roll containing half-a-dozen daggers. Then he found the digital SLR camera.

Ziva raised an eyebrow at the contents of the bag which had been turfed out onto the table before pulling on a pair of latex crime scene gloves and removing the items from the deposit box, allowing Harry to take an adequate number of photographs of each object. Ziva then took several airtight containers from her own bag and placed, separately, the mummified hand and the map in them. Harry then summoned the vapid woman back to replace the empty box before they left, acquiring, on the way, the CCTV footage for the occasions when the box had been claimed.

"Do the Israelis seriously not listen to Led Zeppelin. I doubt I could have survived twenty years of warzones without it." Harry was saying incredulously as they headed back to his car when a man in dark glasses and a baseball cap accosted them.

"Do you know where I could find Kelleher Avenue?" the man said, his voice rough.

"Sorry bud, no idea." Harry replied.

"I'm gonna need that map too." the man added.

"Then you're all out of luck." said Harry dangerously, hand falling to his pistol; "We left it in the deposit box."

"Don't lie! And don't draw." spat the baseball-cap wearing thug. "Take a look at that van behind me."

Harry glanced over. One presumed hostile with an M4-type weapon behind the sliding door. One probably in the driver's seat, and then the muscle next to them. That was interesting. Minimum of three conspirators.

"Want to reconsider?" asked the thug.

Harry slowly lowered his hand from his pistol and reached into his pack with his right hand, pushing the safety off on his G3. He shot a significant glance at Ziva, who struck the man with a vicious kick to the crotch and an elbow to the temple. Harry had ripped the battle rifle out of his pack, and before the gunman could fire at either of them, a magazine of twenty 7.62 NATO armour-piercing bullets ripped into the van.

His gunfire was inaccurate, fired from the elbow with the stock folded. The rifleman attempted to return fire, but the truck took off down the street.

"Car!" Harry barked to Ziva, throwing her the keys.

He hefted the unconscious thug over his shoulder as they sprinted to the Bentley. Opening the boot, he threw the thug in, slamming it before climbing into the passenger seat of the already-running car. Even as he was closing the door, Ziva stood on the accelerator and the Bentley took off down the street after the van.

Spotting the van hanging a right two blocks down, Harry remembered driving to the bank. The road at the end of the one the van had taken was a one way, right only.

"Go right here!" Harry barked at Ziva, who instantly obeyed, sliding the Bentley around and headed up the road parallel to the one the escapees were taking.

Slamming a fresh magazine into the G3, Harry opened the stock and lowered the window, bracing the rifle against the windowsill. His hunch was correct, the truck had done a full one-eighty and was coming up on their left. Taking careful aim, wanting to put the truck out of action, he fired three shots. They all thudded into the front of the van, to no effect.

It veered towards the Bentley, but Ziva floored the throttle. The car leapt forward, out of the path of the oncoming vehicle, and she spun it left, giving Harry a chance to fire a snap-shot at the back, before hauling the big car back around behind the truck. A caged monster was how the sound coming from the car would be described. Ziva floored it even as the car was still spinning back to follow the truck. The bellow of the engine and screaming tyres as it took off down the road was split by the crackle of gunfire from the truck, missing the Bentley in the cloud of its own tyre smoke.

The engine's roar blared from the exhausts and the wheels stopped spinning, and suddenly the tyres were gripping and the car accelerating viciously. The engine was a replacement for the original, taken from the production line for the Bentley Brooklands, was throwing them down the road with well over five-hundred horsepower.

Despite trying desperately to escape, the van was being hunted down by a far more skilled driver than their own in an immensely powerful car. Ziva was always watching the traffic, picking out the fastest route through it two or three gaps ahead of the car. And Harry had turned off most of the driver aids. Soon the black Bentley was right behind the truck when Ziva suddenly pulled out alongside and gently nudged the Bentley against the rear side and pressed the throttle even harder into the carpet. With multiple tons of car pushing, the van spun, and then flipped onto its side.

Ziva spun the Bentley around and rolled up next to the van. They both climbed out, Ziva drawing her pistol as they encircled the van. Struggling out of the shattered front windscreen was...

"Well well well... Doctor Burns." Ziva chuckled.

Harry knew the James Bond marathon they'd watched a few months ago in London had been a bad idea.

* * *

"-and naturally, you happened to have a high-calibre automatic rifle in your backpack. And naturally, you decided to shoot them instead of arresting, and when they fled, you chucked the one you'd captured in the trunk and chased them through downtown Richmond." sighed Gibbs; "Damn you Potter, I hate you sometimes. You have no idea the amount of paperwork I'm going to have to do."

"I had thought myself safe enough in America to not wear my body-armour, and given that someone was pointing an assault rifle at myself and Ziva, I decided that it was better that neither of us got killed." Harry replied, waving off Gibbs' concerns, turning to Ziva; "Nice move though, I doubt Chuck is going to remove his balls from his throat for a while."

She chuckled, leaning back and smirking, amused at the fact that Harry had christened the American thug 'Chuck' after he'd spent ten minutes after he'd woken up ranting about how 'the South will rise again' before Harry anaesthetised him and attempted some mental recalibration with the same precision tool, the butt of his rifle.

"Thing is, Elaine Burns, the driver, was high up in the Smithsonian, the gunman is a sixty-seven year-old ranch owner from down-south. I doubt everyone will be particularly happy." Gibbs sighed; "In a way it was lucky though, Burns was involved in the investigation, she must have got a description of Ziva given that you haven't met her."

"The worst they can do is throw me out of the country, I go back to doing my job of killing terrorists. Anyway, they were traitors, murderers and domestic terrorists." Harry shrugged unconcernedly; "The US owes me big-time, and if I feel like making a point, I'll just call in a favour."

"Yeah, well we found out from the CCTV who the guy claiming to be Sorrow's brother to get the deposit box was. Judd Kearns, we're going to go and arrest him, and it'd be good if he was both alive, mentally fit and not maimed in any way. When the case is closed, we'll hand over the map to the government archaeology department, they might find out why they wanted the map." Gibbs commented.

"So, where're we going?" asked Ziva.

"Manassas State Park, Kearns is there now at a Civil War re-enactment." replied Gibbs.

"I'm sure you won't mind if I go with Harry. His car is far more comfortable than the NCIS van, and much faster." Ziva commented.

"Just no more car chases. I'm not looking for an increased civil property damages budget." Gibbs grumbled.

He nearly cried and considered handing in his resignation letter as Harry pulled open the boot of his car. The cavernous space had quite a few rifles tucked away inside it.

"Accuracy International AS50, been using it for years since I got it as a pre-production, took me a lot to get that, but I used it to great effect during the invasion of Iraq. A combined-effect round from that could punch through the armour of half of Sadam's ex-Soviet junk." Harry commented; "Bolt-action Accuracy International Arctic Warfare Super Magnum chambering the Finnish .338 Lapua for putting holes in people at long range. Heckler and Koch HK416 has a stupidly fast fire-rate, Saiga-12K automatic shotgun is good for blowing doors apart. And my favourite Heckler and Koch HK417 battle rifle and marksman's rifle." he commented as Ziva looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "It isn't paranoia-"

"If they're not out to get you." she completed; "Wait, that's not right."

"It isn't paranoia if they are out to get you Ziva." Harry corrected with a chuckle as he closed the boot.

* * *

Harry exited the director's office after having to explain why he'd not called for backup from local police while chasing the suspects, who were now in holding cells, one delivered in significant pain. He unrepentantly admitted he'd opened fire on the van with the gunman pointing a rifle at them. Descending the stairs from the director's office, Harry slipped into the bullpen, darkness having fallen and almost everyone having gone home. Grabbing his laptop and his bag of kit, he paused as Ziva fell into step next to him, walking towards the lift.

"Mind if I take you up on your offer of somewhere to crash?" Ziva asked.

"Hey, I wouldn't have offered if I didn't mean it." Harry said, slipping an arm around her shoulders as they stepped into the lift.

Ziva sighed. She'd forgotten how comfortable she was with Harry. She hit the stop button on the lift.

"What did my father offer you?" she asked bluntly.

"Money, a significant six-figure sum, and he thought that seducing you would be the best way." Harry replied bluntly; "But he forgot one thing, soldier, fighter, killer I may be, but I have a strict moral code. And while the seduction wouldn't have been wholly unpleasant, I find that seduction for espionage purposes is rather distasteful."

"You forget Harry, it wouldn't be the first time we've been intimate." Ziva smiled, wrapping her arm around his waist; "Besides, I think seducing me would end up the other way around... and it would be a lot better than 'not wholly unpleasant'."Harry laughed and pulled her into a hug, pressing a kiss to her forehead. They'd had a brief relationship during her Sayeret Matkal service with the IDF, when she'd been going-on eighteen and he just gone twenty-one. It had been very enjoyable, but as he'd had a looming posting with Jagdgeschwader 73 in Germany, and her service giving way to Mossad training, it couldn't have lasted then. The War on Terror had seemingly put paid to all hope of their relationship going beyond friends, but he wouldn't say it was such a shut case any longer.

"I have no doubt about that." he said finally, hitting the on button.

"And my domesticated house-husband rides again." Ziva laughed as Harry turned from the cooker with two laden plates of food, steaming hot.

Supper was two steaming plates of fish on a bed of spaghetti with finely cut beans and a coriander and cream sauce which he placed on the farmhouse table. Sniffing slightly at the fragrant vapours pouring off the white-coloured fish and the accompanying food, she heard a light chuckle from Harry;

"I'm not trying to poison you. The fish is fresh off the trawler this morning." Harry commented as he pulled off his shirt and draped it around the back of his chair, leaving him in a tan t-shirt. "I remember a Scottish prayer for meals, something like 'Here is to us, and ones like us. They're few and all dead'."

"Then thank god, the world wouldn't survive if there was more than one Tony." Ziva deadpanned.

"I'm going to introduce him to my godfather, he's a bit like Tony, swaggering womaniser, but English, rich and with a beard." he replied.

"I've never met him. I know you've mentioned him on occasion." Ziva stated, taking an experimental bite of the fish.

"I think he's a love-or-hate character." Harry said, tucking into his food with gusto.

"Why are you here?" Ziva asked partway through the meal; "Beyond Gibbs calling in a favour."

"What, the lack of bringing a squadron of SAS guys with me?" Harry replied; "I retired Ziva, I was tired, mentally and physically worn out. I was having to be on three continents in one day too often. I've lost count of the number of times I've flown across the Atlantic, or across Europe and Asia. I've not exactly kept myself out of the order of battle for The Regiment either. A combination of little sleep, long hours in the cockpit and the occasional firefight and I'm just fatigued. Honestly, I decided I wasn't going to do more than a couple of hours flying a week until I'm physically and mentally sorted out."

She stayed silent, letting him talk it through.

"I know, clinically, that I'm a good soldier, and a good pilot. But mentally, I was thinking 'how long until I muck up, with permanent effects'. So I pushed for retirement, and the approval came in just a few days ago." Harry continued, letting out a slight sigh as he ran a hand through his hair; "Then Gibbs steps in. One call and I make the decision, fuel up the Phantom for one more run in the near future and head across here. I'm not flying it until I'm fully rested up, that's an aircraft that can, and will, bite."

"Thank God. I do not want to lose you to a stupid accident caused by mental fatigue." Ziva stated.

"Enjoying the meal?" he asked, deciding to divert her mind.

"I'll inflate your ego and admit it's brilliant." she replied; "What is it?"

"Italian spaghetti, haddock and a white wine and cream sauce with finely cut green beans, parsley and coriander." Harry replied with a slight touch of pride.

An hour later, Ziva was sat on a sofa in an upstairs living room with Harry looking out onto the bay, with the lights of various boats both close and far off. For both of them, the sea was humbling. One of them a semi-retired British officer who had, for several years, held command over what was basically one of the most dangerous private armies in the world, with the authority to extralegally operate anywhere in the world he chose to, he knew that his power was nothing against the force of the waves which were eternal. For Ziva, the sea was rather different. It was a reminder that however knowledgeable and skilled mankind was, some things couldn't be controlled.

"Hey, Ziva?" Harry whispered, only to find that she had fallen asleep, curled into his side.

Smiling slightly, he pulled a tartan throw across them and gradually slipped into unconsciousness himself.


	3. 3: Silver War Aftermath

**13th October 2010, Chesapeake Hall, Maryland**

Harry was awoken by a gentle but insistent shaking of his shoulder by a somewhat unfamiliar hand. Snapping awake in moments, his hand was already twisting free the butt of the perpetually-present pistol from his waistband. Then he stilled and pushed the pistol back when he realised that the person waking him up was Ziva. Relaxing, he sat up, having realised he was draped across the sofa, and had evidently slept the night.

"Hey Ziva." he said, yawning.

"I brought you some coffee." she replied, handing him a large mug containing a pint of very strong coffee. She hadn't forgotten his own penchant for good coffee, nor his habit flying a sack of Fazenda Santa Ines coffee beans from Brazil whenever he was running low.

"Thanks, you're a brick." said Harry gratefully, taking a gulp of the liquid ambrosia.

"A brick?" Ziva asked, sitting down on the sofa next to him.

"Sorry, English-ism." Harry answered; "Means someone who's as reliable as a brick." and continued as she opened her mouth with another question on her tongue; "Don't ask."

Ziva laughed, taking a sip of her own tea, something she'd started drinking while attending Oxford University in the early to mid 2000s prior to entering Mossad. A time when she'd still had some of her innocence, even after her conscription into the IDF. After a satisfied sigh as the hot liquid washed down her throat, she decided to break the subject of what they needed to do during the day with Harry.

"Gibbs sent me a text message telling me that I wasn't to bother coming into work today. While he didn't say it explicitly but hinted it was time better spent on getting settled in, and added that you would be doing the same." she commented.

"I haven't had a chance to look at my phone yet." Harry replied; "How much stuff have you brought over from Israel?"

"Not much, a couple of changes of clothes and some toiletries which I need to retrieve from the motel the Israeli Embassy set me up in." answered Ziva; "Everything else is in a shipping crate somewhere between Tel Aviv and Hampton Roads. It might be a couple of weeks before it arrives."

"You need to get some more essentials then." Harry noted; "I need to get a couple of cars serviced before I can use them."

"Doesn't sound like too much." Ziva said, smothering a yawn; "Hopefully no sudden calls from Gibbs ordering us to come in and solve another weird case." this time she had less success at covering her tiredness; "Still just a bit sleepy. Sorry for falling asleep on you by the way."

"Hey, don't worry, I fell asleep on you too." Harry laughed, affectionately wrapping one arm around her shoulders; "Anyway, I should get up and look at getting some breakfast."

"Thanks." replied Ziva, leaning over and pressing a lingering kiss to his cheek as they rose from the sofa and headed towards the kitchen.

"You know, it's odd the number of times that we've coincided around the world." Harry commented with a grin as they walked through the house; "That first posting with my unit to Sayeret Matkal in '97, one covert operation in Iraq in January '98, now here."

"I'm not complaining." Ziva shrugged.

"Nor I, Ziva, nor I."

Harry, having seen Ziva head off with the Bentley, finished helping the workers from a Washington-based classic car dealership load his old muscle cars onto a series of trucks. They drove off, taking six-figures of value in motor cars to get them in working condition.

Satisfied that there was little else he could do of use without a car around, Harry walked down to where the estate backed onto Chesapeake bay, and where a fairly large boathouse sat. He would spend the rest of the day working on his boat, and try and get it going. As long as Harry could remember, Gibbs liked building neat little sailing dingys. However, he himself liked things a little bigger.

High and dry above the water on a rail-mounted trolley on the slipway at the end of the boathouse was his own vessel. Ninety feet long, with a low, squat superstructure, an open bridge on top, and a sleek triple hull, even sat above the water with its three propellers sat out of the water, it looked like it was going flat out.

Making his way around the walkways on the sides of the boathouse, Harry securely knotted a rope onto one of the bollards on each side of the boathouse, fifty feet or so in front of the boat's bow. Tying a knot in the end of each rope to weight it, he then twirled them around to gather momentum before slinging them onto the rail of the vessel.

Jumping onto the boat's deck, he tied the ropes down to mooring cleats mounted on the deck, securing it firmly so that the boat wouldn't drift out of the boathouse onto the water before he was ready. With the boat secured, Harry ducked down into the superstructure and headed down to the engine room where he started checking through all the machinery.

A boat like his own had several engines. There were a couple of compact flat-sixes he had bought from Porsche which were attached to powerful winches on the bow and stern. A Rolls-Royce Meteor V12 could be used for low-speed manoeuvring in harbour, and then there were three gas turbines providing main propulsion. It took a period of several hours for Harry to work his way through all the mechanical parts before he could say that everything was working.

Preparing for a test run, Harry released the stern rope, holding the boat on its trolley high above the water. The trolley, mounted on a rail, with the weight of the vessel pulling it down the ramp, and thus forward, sent the boat into the water. Holding onto the rail as the boat hit the water, Harry made his way around to the waist of the vessel, making sure that the ropes at the holding it to the bollards were secure and would keep it in place as he started the engines.

Going down to the auxiliary engine compartment, it was a matter of a few moments work with the fuel pump and then the ignition for the Meteor engines to burst into life, and then he headed up to the deck. Returning to the waist position, he loosed the ropes from the bollards and then climbed up to the bridge, and prepared to start the main engines.

Beyond the propellers and their shafts was the engine room. It held three gas turbines, and once they would have been Bristol Proteus engines, each rated at three-and-a-half thousand horsepower or a total of over ten-thousand horsepower. But yet again, Harry's love of things being a little bigger had intervened and he'd dug around until he'd found the most powerful turbines that would fit in the boat.

In this case, it was three engines purchased off the production line for the Airbus A400M Atlas, rated each at eleven-thousand horsepower. Engaging drive from the Meteor to the first engine, he ran it up to fifteen-percent RPM and then hit the ignition, before repeating the process. One by one, the engines mounted in the Soloven Class fast attack craft whined into life, spitting sheets of flame back up the boathouse.

That was one of the drawbacks of the design, no matter what gas turbine, residual fuel gathered in the exhausts, three of which were mounted at the stern. When he started the boat, the flames could cook anything within twenty feet. It was a good talking point though, and people never moored too close behind your boat more than once.

With the mooring ropes already cast off, Harry used a remote control to open the boathouse doors. The whine of the turbines increased as he throttled up the centre engine, cruising out onto Chesapeake Bay. Leaving the creek on which the boathouse sat, the turbines spooled up loudly, the port engine the most of all as he used it to turn the slow-moving vessel to face south along the bay before opening up on all three engines steadily.

Equalizing the power across all three, the powerful gunboat pushed forward, not racing off, but gathering speed. As he watched the speedometer slow its climb climbing, Harry eased open the throttles to full power. The low rumble of the jet turbines becoming a howl following in the wake of the boat, they took off down the bay, the bow climbing with the speed. Residual thrust through the exhausts blasted the surface of the bay, already turned into a roiling froth by the boat.

Chesapeake Bay was shallow, and at speed, the boat began to lift off the surface, hydroplaning, as a pressure wave built between the water and the bow. The boat was really shifting as it headed towards sixty knots. Harry glanced at the GPS. The mouth of the bay was a hundred miles south, it would take a bit over three hours to do a return trip. He had the time and fuel.

Sitting down in the seat behind the throttles and wheel, Harry opened the icebox next to him, producing a bottle of cider. It was then that he realised he hadn't brought a bottle opener. It was no matter, reaching into his waistband, Harry drew his M1911, slid back the slide and used the frame to pry open the bottle. Not generally a good idea as it could bend and break the metal, but he had put a few strengthening spells on the gun.

* * *

Harry was just mooring the Soloven to the jetty protruding beyond the mouth of the boathouse, not having any way of reversing the vessel back in without the use of the winch inside, when he spotted one of the NCIS Dodge Chargers rolling up the long driveway, crunching gravel beneath its tyres.

Jumping onto the jetty from the boat, Harry walked through the boathouse back onto dry land as the easily recognisable figure of his old friend and new colleague, Gibbs, climbed out of the car. Reaching into his pocket, Harry thumbed in a number on his phone, holding one finger above the call button.

"Morning... afternoon actually Gibbs." Harry stated, glancing at his watch.

"I wanted to speak to you while the rest of the team are on their lunch hour." Gibbs replied.

"Director still pissed?" asked Harry.

"You bet. She's accepted that you felt at the time there was genuine risk to your life, but generally we don't use automatic weapons in a civilian environment, and car chases are just an excuse for civil damages suits." snorted Gibbs.

"I'll try and tone it down." Harry conceded.

"I personally wanted to ask about Ziva." Gibbs added after a few minutes.

Harry's thumb jabbed down on the call button on his phone, waiting a few seconds as he walked over before asking.

"Why do you want to know about Ziva, Gibbs?"

* * *

Sat in Harry's Bentley Continental T Mulliner, feeling distinctly out of place as she munched a takeaway pizza outside the food outlet from whence it had come, Ziva noticed an incoming call on her phone from Harry's. Hitting the accept, she lifted it to her ear just in time to hear Harry speaking on the other end.

" _Why do you want to know about Ziva, Gibbs_?"

" _You need ask that? She's on my team and I need to know enough about her to properly utilise her skills._ " came a slightly-distant voice instantly identifiable as Gibbs.

" _I suppose that was a slightly stupid question, but I thought from what I'd overheard that Ziva's skills consisted only of spying and killing?_ " Harry asked.

" _Look, you know and I know it's not as cut-and-shut as that._ " Gibbs growled; " _I admit some of my comments could be seen as having been a bit rash._ "

" _Glad we agree on one thing._ " Harry riposted; " _But if you want answers to your questions, ask away. Though don't expect answers to many of them as a lot of our work is classified._ "

" _How long have you known each-other, exactly? You've mentioned you're old friends..._ " demanded Gibbs.

" _Thirteen years, give or take a few months. Pre-Mossad if that's what you're asking._ " sighed Harry.

" _How did you come to know Ziva?_ " was Gibbs's next question.

" _We saved each-other's lives during a military mission, most of the rest of that is strictly classified and of the rest I won't discuss much more because it's equally Ziva's story, not mine._ " Harry answered; " _You remember Mogadishu? Operation Gothic Serpent._ "

" _I was an NCIS agent embedded with a Marine Corps unit in Djibouti when the casualties began coming in. I heard rumours of British operators there... Nothing solid of course._ " Gibbs replied.

" _Yeah, we were there. Well, let's say the mission that Ziva and I worked together on turned into a second Blackhawk Down._ " said Harry

" _Why this level of trust? You're a British intelligence and military operative, she's Mossad, at best a tenuous ally._ " Gibbs said, frustrated.

" _Gibbs, you have your rules, I have two, don't kill in cold blood and don't screw over your friends._ " said Harry; " _I used to have three but then I grew cynical. At work, former work I should say, I had four colleagues who I would and did trust with my life, but outside of work I had one friend, rather sad really. And I don't make a habit of betraying her._ "

" _Will you tell her about this conversation?_ " asked Gibbs.

" _If Ziva asks directly, I won't lie._ " Harry replied.

" _I suppose that's the best I can hope for._ "

" _Yes. Yes it is._ "

" _Well, I need to get back to NCIS, make sure Tony doesn't arrive back late after lunch because he's been wrapped around some girl._ " said Gibbs. " _Else I'll smack him so hard he'll be stuck in the Civil War._ "

" _Have fun._ " Harry said, and silence reigned for a minute before the sound of an NCIS Dodge Charger starting up and driving away; " _I hope you caught that Ziva._ "

Then the phone line went dead. That was when Ziva decided she was going to do something _really_ nice for him.

* * *

Axe in hand, Harry was just finishing splitting logs for the stockpile of burnable wood just after midday when Ziva arrived back, racing up the drive and pulling to a halt outside the house. Throwing the hatchet he was using into the wall of the shed, he walked out and headed around to the front where he'd heard the car arrive.

"I managed to fit all my shopping in the boot." Ziva said, smirking.

Harry chuckled, knowing that Ziva liked self-deprecating humour and often made comments comparing herself to the majority of women, especially given the fact that her Mossad service meant that she rarely spent money and could occasionally go all out on shopping.

"You need any help?" he asked.

"Please." replied Ziva, opening the Bentley's boot.

Returning to the car a couple of times, between them, they got the contents of the car up to the bedroom Ziva was occupying. A glance around as the contents of her shopping were loaded into the walk-in closet revealed a couple of photographs on the bedside cabinet, one of Harry and Ziva in 1997, another of Ziva and her sister Talia more recently and a third of Harry, Ziva and Talia.

"How secure is this place?" Ziva asked from the walk-in closet.

"Very. Department M at MI5 had every room individually layered with ward enchantments, then each floor, wing and then the entire house and grounds, add in the sound-deadening materials and a few other things..." Harry replied.

"How's my sister?" she said.

"Very well, her twenty-fourth is coming up and she's happily working running the stables for me." Harry replied; "Still misses you a great deal."

"I couldn't let her remain in Israel." Ziva stated, a slightly pained look crossing her face; "Between my father and the two Palestinian uprisings, I don't regret faking her death."

"I know Ziva." commented Harry, pulling her, unresisting, into a hug; "So does Talia."

"Yeah, just can't help but occasionally doubt myself." she sighed, burying her head in his shoulder and wrapping her arms around Harry's waist.

"Come on, chin up. We both know that often the right decisions are the harder to make." Harry stated; "And it's better to doubt yourself than be propelled by arrogance. You want a bite to eat?"

"Please." Ziva replied as Harry targeted her one weakness, a love of good food; "One minute, just stay here." she added before vanishing into the walk-in closet.

"Ziva?" Harry asked.

"Just hold on a moment... I wanted your opinion on something I bought." she called back from the walk-in closet.

Within a few minutes, Ziva emerged dressed in an elegant royal purple evening dress, with a plunging neckline which revealed just enough of the woman beneath, the waist clinging to her hips. Harry had enough control of his facial expressions not to gawp.

"Well... I'm not going to use any of our new colleague Mr. DiNozzo's terms... but it certainly suits you." Harry decided to shoot for the understatement of the year award before adding; "Certainly, it makes me remember why I fell for you."

Ziva twirled around, causing the dress to flare around her hips as well as moving her right in front of Harry.

"Does it..." she almost purred, leaning in until their faces were an inch apart.

Slowly, Ziva pressed a slow, gentle kiss to his cheek before drawing away.

"Well, I better get changed into something more practical for dinner." said Ziva as she turned towards the closet, a wicked smirk crossing her face.

Just as she was about to sweep out of his reach, Harry, who was turning towards the door, lunged out.

"Yowch!" Ziva yelped, rubbing her sore rump.

"It's not nice to tease." Harry commented before heading out.

Ziva glared half-heartedly after him before going to change.

His own slightly-wolfish smirk on his face, Harry headed down through the manor towards the kitchen to prepare supper. He shook his head to himself. Ziva would be the death of him. Who was he fooling though, it would be a pleasant way to go.

Dinner that night was grilled drum fish that had been caught that morning on Harry's six-hour excursion down the Chesapeake, and it was to his credit that Harry managed not to betray his thoughts about the fact that Ziva was playing footsie with him under the table.


End file.
